I actually only decided to go to this show about 48 hours prior to it. I had seen Queensryche 5 times previously, and it's no real secret that I don't particularly care for their post-Empire material. But at only $18 and only 10 minutes from my house, I couldn't refuse.

The venue (Crocodile Rock Cafe) continued to uphold its reputation as easily the worst venue I've ever been to in just about every aspect possible. They usually have 2 entrances to the venue - a front entrance for 21+ people, and an "Under 21" entrance on the side of the building. Well, after having been in line at the Under 21 door for about 45 minutes, venue staff decide to finally tell us that they're not using that door, so we had to go get in the other line about 25 minutes before the doors opened. So much rather than being on the rail as we should've been, we were a couple of rows of people back, which turned out to be OK, but nevertheless, it's the principle. Also, in all of the advertising for the show, they mentioned no support band, but of course, there was one, and they sucked pretty hard.
Queensryche actually came on at 8:45, and the show lasted until almost 10:45. The sound was decent (good, considering this venue's sound is normally absolute shit), and the performance was very solid. This was my first time seeing the band since Parker Lundgren has been on 2nd guitar, and overall I was quite happy. One of the pleasant surprises to me was that the original arrangements of "The Lady Wore Black" and "Jet City Woman" are finally back, as they should be. Also, the band actually played all of "Real World", which was incredible.
Some of the post-Empire tunes went over much better than I was expecting - namely "Right Side of My Mind", which was actually great. "The Hands" was very solid as expected, and I didn't mind "At 30,000 Feet" much either, despite having not liked it previously. Most of the others were pretty much what I expected, and the set took a LONG time to get any kind of momentum to it. But from "Real World" on it was a very good show all-around. The band certainly did well to disprove my long-standing theory that they weren't worth seeing if not doing a Mindcrime performance. I guess it just took seeing them on a small stage in an intimate environment to make me feel that way. Overall, a very good show. This will probably be the last time I ever see them due to lack of interest at this point, but it was very good.

The small stage and intimate environment may have had something (or even a lot) to do with it, but also don't discount low expectations as a primary factor in why you may have enjoyed the show more than you thought you would. That kind of thing happens to me all the time, and not just with music. Movies are another area of entertainment where low expectations have saved the day on more than one occasion for me.

Having said this, I'm surprised Ravenheart isn't thrilled at every gig or movie he sees.

Oh, and for the record, this is me making a good-natured, civil post in a thread that (1) you started, and (2) is focused on a band I care absolutely nothing about. Just felt like pointing that out.